


A cool empty silence

by basaltgrrl



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-27
Updated: 2010-08-27
Packaged: 2017-10-15 10:15:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/159801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basaltgrrl/pseuds/basaltgrrl





	A cool empty silence

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**A cool empty silence**   
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<"A cool empty silence"

 

On the day that Sam was released from the hospital he stopped at an off-license on his way home.  It was an Oddbins, an easy walk from the bus stop, and he walked the aisles, through the clean, conditioned air, past the ranks of chardonnay and shiraz to the scotch section.  He picked a bottle of Glenfarclas – he had no special memories attached to this particular single malt, but then Gene had not been a man of limited tastes.  It was simply the first one that looked right to him.

Back at his flat Sam took off his suit jacket and tossed it on the sofa, then unbuttoned his shirt.  He found a tumbler in the stainless kitchen, poured a finger of scotch.  He sipped.  Then sat.  The room pressed in on him.  He pressed back out at it, at its silence and antiseptic cleanness and lack of color.  He looked at the gold in his glass.

They had told him not to drink with the medications, and to eat to make up for his time as an invalid.  But he felt little hunger; little desire for alcohol either, truth be told.  Still, routines… they held some meaning.  Some comfort?

Later he stood in the bedroom, naked.  Pressed the bottle of Glenfarclas against his temple, rolling it lightly against his closed eyes.  Against his heart, staring out the window at the blackness.  Against his groin.  Laid down on the bed, thinking of what was lost.  Curled himself around the bottle and stared with dry, burning eyes at the wall and through it.

He didn’t know he had fallen asleep until he woke to morning.  The sunlight streaming in made the white room whiter.  He brought the bottle of scotch into the bathroom while he took his shower.  He put it on the kitchen counter while he made coffee, toast.  Into the bathroom again to brush his teeth, and to the bedroom.  The bottle indented the neatly made bed while he chose a shirt, did up his tie, slipped on his jacket.  Picked it up again as he walked into the living room and almost put it in his laptop case.

Stopped.  He set the bottle down on the side table, sat down next to it in the leather chair, stared at the bottle.  And was suddenly wracked by deep sobs that seemed to claw their way out of him, knotting his muscles, ripping halves of his body apart.  He slid forward out of the chair, on his hands and knees on the carpet with the tears and snot streaming out of him and the crying, crying, crying.  The sobs stole his breath, made him choke, gasping for air through the snot and agony.

It eased in time.  He had known it would.  He found Kleenex and blew his nose at least five times.  Back into the bathroom to wash his face, and then sniffed, hiccoughed, staring into his own eyes in the mirror.  He looked like shit.

“Can’t go on like this,” he told himself, voice barely recognizable.  Gave himself a cold glare.  Picked up his case, looked once more at the bottle of Glenfarclas on its side on the white carpet.  Walked out the door, into the cool empty silence of another day.>


End file.
